cdma

Latency is one of those under-the-radar tech terms that is largely forgotten. T-Mobile, however, hasn’t forgotten about it — they’ve got the best latency figures, according to Open Signal. The Uncarrier has some of the fastest latency figures when compared to the other three major network providers, blowing one out of the water.

Owners of the GSM Nexus S were on top of the world last week, owing to the fact that an official Ice Cream Sandwich update had finally returned with Android 4.0.4. But in what seems to be the new norm, CDMA devices including the Nexus S 4G and Verizon's XOOM and Galaxy Nexus were left out in the cold. At least one of those has been amended, if not exactly fixed: owners of Samsung's Nexus S 4G can now run a leaked version of Android 4.0.4 on their neglected phones. BriefMobile broke the leak and is hosting the download.

This week in tech news, we see a number of software updates, preparations by companies for the Super Bowl, and even a few official device reviews. Monday, Motorola began to offer a bootloader-unlocked RAZR XT910 'Developer Edition'. It is currently available for €499 ($657), but only in Europe for the time being. ClockworkMod Touch by 'Koush' was released in Beta form early on this week as well. It has had steady updates throughout the week, and it's obvious he wants to implement the new features on as many devices with a strong developmental following as possible.

After pulling together today's top stories, you may have missed a terrible incident where refurbished XOOM units from Woot contained previous user data! Apparently, between March to October of 2011, refurbishing companies were apparently wiping the devices improperly. If you have fallen victim to this, Motorola will help pay for a 2 year subscription to Experian to make sure your credit hadn't been adversely affected.

Samsung's Galaxy S II remains one of our favorite smartphones here at Android Community, and with sales passing 3m worldwide in the first 55 days of availability, its absence from the US market is increasingly frustrating. According to a new report from Korea, however, that may not change any time soon; Chosun Ilbo claims that US carriers like Verizon are dismissing the Galaxy S II because Samsung's CDMA expertise lags behind that of Motorola and others.
According to the paper, Motorola "makes phones that work best with the American mobile protocol CDMA. That means US telecoms have a better alternative." Although the Galaxy S was the best selling Android device in the US at one point in 2010, carriers are supposedly less inclined to pick up its successor because HTC and Motorola are offering more compelling CDMA options now.
"When the Galaxy S smartphone was launched last year, no competing new models by Motorola and HTC were available" the paper suggests. "As far as US telecoms were concerned, the Galaxy S was the only alternative to the iPhone last year. But the new model faces much tougher competition"
Samsung has not confirmed the rumors, but an unnamed executive from the company did admit that "negotiations with American telecom companies have dragged on" while European sales flourish and the Canadian carriers are gung-ho about the handset.
[via GottaBeMobile]

The Sony Xperia Play made a repeat performance at the FCC this weekend, as it's CDMA twin received Federal consideration. The inaugural Playstation certified handset, shows a SIM card slot that's different from Verizon's 4G LTE devices. This is leading some to speculate if this is a 3G only device, at least for testing purposes. We haven't seen any 4G association with the phone's advertizing with Verizon, and only rumors are circulating as to the Xperia Play launching later this month. But as we reported here, the Xperia Play is coming to 11 markets around the world, just not the US initially.

Photos and specs have been leaked on what looks to be Amazon's entry into the Android smartphone market. The phone is known as the Blaze, and it looks stacked with a 1.2 1.2GHz dual-core Qualcomm MSM8660 processor, 4.3-inch Mirasol display. Other specs include 512MB ram, 32GB of internal storage and a 5MP rear facing camera. The Blaze will also come with a front-facing camera for video chat, and have may also have a near field communications (NFC) chip for electronic point of purchase (ironic considering Amazon is an Internet based eCommerce site).

Alltel has announced a pre-order date for the HTC Merge, the carrier's latest QWERTY Android slider. Pre-orders will be taken as of March 28, with the smartphone priced at $124.99 with a new, two-year agreement.
That gets you an Android 2.2 phone with HTC Sense running an 800MHz Qualcomm processor. There's also a 5-megapixel camera, 3.8-inch touchscreen and 720p HD video recording. We've already seen the Merge bearing Verizon branding but HTC did promise that the handset would come to more than one US carrier.
The Merge is also a world-phone, which means it has both CDMA and GSM radios and as such can be used on networks in North America and abroad. No word on when it will actually begin shipping, however.
[Thanks Terry!]

AT&T and Deutsche Telekom announced today that AT&T will acquire T-Mobile USA in a cash and stock deal valued at around $39 billion, or 8% of company ownership. The agreement has cleared the boards of both companies and will have to be approved by the Federal Communications Commission. Both companies have been reeling of late with extreme competition from Verizon, who is rolling out their 4G/LTE network to over 200 cities this year. Experts says that AT&T's acquisition of T-Mobile's USA network is the fastest way to add 4G capacity to stay competitive.

Sprint has just released some exciting new information about their Vision and plans for the network. As you guys all know Sprint’s iDEN network is being shutdown sometime in 2013. That is the network that hosts all the Push-to-talk devices you see people still using. Today Sprints press release announced plans to unveil push-to-talk phones on the current CDMA network, a technology they will call Sprint Direct Connect. This will be what replaces the iDEN Network.